“The long drift of French debt” could be the headline of an economic media outlet at a time when the yield on the French 10-year OAT 10-year yield has just crossed the 4% threshold, its highest level since October 2008. In this essay, published last April, Julien Dubertret and Nicolas Ragache have traced essay, published last April, 70 years of France’s fiscal policy, from 1958 to the present day. The work is extensively documented using the long series from INSEE. The economic guidelines and the presentations of the draft finance bills are supplemented by extracts from general policy statements. A remarkable account, after years of work and research, with a clear objective: to inform citizens about the successes and failures observed over the period. A look back into the past necessary in order to better understand the current situation of public finances and to try to answer this question: how could we have gone go from a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 48% in 1980 to 109% in 2023 and more than 115% in 2025? We learn that the real turning point for the French public deficit French public deficit was in 1981 and not in 1975. The second half of the 1970s 1970s saw a period of rising labour costs in France and a very long-lasting loss of competitiveness among French companies, aggravated by the introduction of business tax. The 3% deficit limit was formulated in France in 1982-1983. This limit would later be adopted by European legislation and has become entrenched as a dogma to be respected, making it acceptable as long as it remains below 3% of GDP: “The deficit has become a public resource public resource in its own right.” Some lessons from this budgetary history noted over the years: –          The temptation to see public spending as the fundamental source of growth, even at the peak of the cycle –          Combating inflation: the State must not resort to money creation to finance its own expenses –          The widespread over-regulation was already highlighted in the 1960s –          The post-oil shock recovery plan: an accommodating fiscal and monetary policy was not the right solution in the face of a major supply shock linked to the rise in oil prices. –          “The excessive focus on the economic situation to the detriment of the needs for structural adjustment is a recurring trap.” For example, the use of privatisation revenues, which are by nature one-off, to finance current budgetary expenditure –          In the early 1980s, the reform of the financial markets allowed the issuance of the first OATs (Obligation Assimilable au Trésor) in 1985. A reform which, in the long term, would facilitate the financing of public deficits. –          The equation aimed at reducing public spending to simultaneously reduce taxes and the deficit, works if growth is sufficiently dynamic –          Michel Rocard’s White Paper, published in April 1991, first raised the question of the balance of pension schemes with the lowering to 60 years of the full pension age to 60, which came into force in 1983 The book ends with a bleak picture of the economic situation in France, based on a model of public spending and high compulsory levies, in a fragmented parliamentary landscape. This essay is recommended for future presidential election candidates, election, where the authors invite them to rely on a better understanding of the economic cycle and on ambitious long-term objectives that are that are less dependent on growth. Julien DUBERTRET was budget adviser to the PrimeMinister before taking over as head of the Budget Directorate in 2011, where hehe had joined in 1992, and then to serve in the General Inspectorate of Finance. He is now an expert at the firm Global Sovereign Advisory.  Nicolas RAGACHE is an economist and lawyer who graduated from Ensae,the École d’économie de Paris and Paris-Panthéon-Assas. He has heldadministrator positions at Bercy, ministerial adviser, and is currentlychief economist of the Afep (French Association of Private Companies). Reading note by SophieFRIOT

The book is presented as a handbook with answers to 50 frequently asked questions on inheritance taxation. The book is organised into three parts dealing with the role of inheritance in social life, the decline of inheritance taxes, and then formulating proposals for reforming the current arrangements. One of the most sensitive tax issues in France for several decades has been the taxation of capital (real estate and financial) and inheritance, particularly since the publication of Piketty’s book, Capital in the 21 st Century (2021). The latter proposes a “Great Transfer” of capital between seniors (holders of 60% of the national private wealth) and the younger generations. This issue has been addressed by distinguished economists and sociologists, such as Atkinson, Friedman, Rawls, Pikettey, Sen, etc. It is a revealing indicator of the economic and social positioning of the French. It is all the more divisive as it pits against each other or divides generations, households (more or less wealthy), political movements and European governments. However, inheritance has never been taxed so little in France (it generates less than 1% of state revenue); this is why there is an increasing temptation to redress public accounts by “overtaxing the rich”, but this radical measure is likely to intensify tax exile. In particular, “systemic” reforms are advocated and then quickly forgotten, such as the allocation of a minimum inheritance at the start of working life, the surtaxation of inheritances derived fr In order to redirect low-return savings placed in cash accounts and government bonds, several economists (Artus and Viard, 2022; Tirole and Blanchard, 2021; Masson, 2025) propose hybrid formulas combining incentives for donations, the creation of new tax bands (up to 60%) for inheritance, and tax exemptions on the proceeds of “future investments” intended to finance very long-term projects (up to 25 years) that meet ESG principles.om other inheritances or produced by unproductive income, etc. André Masson isDirector of Research at the CNRS and the EHESS, as well as a researcher at the École d’économie de Paris. Jean-Jacques Pluchart

In their book, Myriam MAESTRONI and Raphaël BOROUMAND propose reconciling the “climate sceptics” and the “climate defeatists”. They believe in combining all the levers in favour of selective, restrained and low-carbon growth, “without pitting the concerns of making ends meet against those of the end of the world”. Decarbonisation will be expensive, but these investments are much lower than the costs of climate change. This requires the decline of certain sectors, such as textiles, and the growth of low-carbon sectors that are useful to the economy. They refer to the “champagne curve” effect by showing that, above a certain threshold of economic development, the growth of carbon emissions no longer improves the well-being of populations. The authors advocate energy efficiency as one of the major solutions, along with the massive development of renewable energies, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This energy efficiency must be optimised in all sectors: increasing renewable energies and managing their intermittency through storage solutions, massively developing green hydrogen, decarbonising transport and developing carbon dioxide capture. The authors present a comprehensive overview of energy systems and new geopolitical challenges. Europe wants to be a champion of sustainable development but is heavily dependent on external suppliers, such as China for rare metals and the United States for shale gas, since the start of the war in Ukraine. It “must not confuse regulatory leadership with climate leadership”. Indeed, to achieve the renewable energy development goals, it had abolished customs duties on Chinese solar panels in 2018. Barely 10 years later, this decision shows the mistakes made in meeting short-term objectives, while a new European energy and industrial policy requires a long-term vision. In the absence of strategic resources on its territory, the authors believe that Europe has a role to play in the development of processing plants dedicated to the recycling and refining of minerals. No energy source is risk-free or universally accepted. But the book gives pride of place to hydrogen, seen as the energy of the future since it does not emit CO2. The emergence of the green hydrogen sector can meet the combination of economic growth, job creation and ecological transition. All these developments require investments that states will not be able to finance on their own. The financial world and citizens’ savings will have to be called upon to ensure the decarbonisation objectives are met.   A comprehensive and well-researched book that will delight readers who are convinced that a new path of economic and sustainable development is possible. Raphaël BOROUMAND is a professor of economics at PSB,and a specialist in energy and climate. He holds a PhD from EHESS-Paris and is a HDRin Economics (Paris-Saclay University). He advises public institutions (ministries, parliament, regulators, think tanks) and private institutions on strategies for energy, climate policy, and risk management in the commodities markets. Myriam MAESTRONI is a leader committed to theenergy transition, who became a managing director in the energy sector at a very young agebefore founding Economie d’Energie and the company DEESCO. She chairs the E5T endowment fund as well as the “100 leaders pour la Planète” programme. Decorated with the Legion of Honour and the National Order of Merit, she sits on several boards of directors and is in the top 40 of the Forbes France ranking. Reading note by SophieFRIOT

“The enemy who designates us” means that we become the enemy of others as soon as they choose to consider us as such, regardless of our intentions or our protests.” Carl SCHMITT. It’s 1965 at the Sorbonne. A young philosopher, Julien Freund, is sitting behind a table. In front of him, several great masters of French philosophy are listening to him, with a mixture of interest and concern. We need to return to his mysterious phrase: “The enemy will prevent you from cultivating your garden”, to understand the world into which the presidency of Donald Trump has dramatically plunged us. And Julien Freund goes on to say to a distinguished member of the jury: “You think that it is you who designates the enemy, like all pacifists. And so, as long as we don’t want an enemy, we won’t have one! But it is the enemy who designates you, and if it wants you to be its enemy, you are!  This is the starting point of this fifth volume of Le Grand Continent, which once again brings together leading specialists and decisive voices to help us navigate this geopolitical moment. If we feel so dizzy in the face of the current upheavals, it is perhaps because we still refuse to take into account a massive dimension of the contemporary world: China. The authors devote an exclusive report to it by publishing – often for the first time in French – renowned Sinologists and key Xi Jinping doctrinaires who openly and authoritatively state why and how the West “will lose”. “We are currently experiencing changes that are unprecedented in a century, and it is we who, together, are at the origin of these changes,” President Xi told Vladimir Putin. Thus, all the converging forces risk subjecting the European liberal democracies to a fate not unlike that of the Florentine Republic in the time of Machiavelli, who said to the Florentine citizens: “Do not be deceived by the hundred years you have lived and in which you have kept yourselves free, ….for you will see that it is impossible for you to safeguard your freedom today in the manner of yesterday.”  Within this framework of reflection and action, Le Grand Continent strives to provide, in addition to analytical tools, some means of learning to resist predators. While the outlines of the threat appear, at this stage, terribly clear, a response commensurate with the times is struggling to emerge. Giuliano da Empoli, with contributions from Michael Albertus, Robert-Henri Berger, Emily Feng, Stacie Goddard, Beeban Kidron, Phil Klay, Oleksandra Matviitchouk, Abraham Newman, Minxin Pei, Paul Saffo, Afra Wang, Dan Wang and Meredith Whittaker, draws a quantified map of the trends that are already shaping a new industrial and technological hegemony. The China dossier, under the scientific direction of David Ownby, includes contributions from Lu Feng, Wang Huning, Jiang Shigong and Zhao Xiaozhuo, who argues that no service-based power has ever won against technologically well-equipped adversaries. This confirms the Chinese military adage that the best victory is the one obtained without having fought a battle.  The contents of the book are as follows: Introduction by Giuliano da Empoli and Gilles Gressani; Stacie Goddard and Abraham Newman, Neo-Royalism: The New World Order of Donald J. Trump; Phil Klay, The Digital Colosseum: The Geopolitics of Brainrot; Meredith Whittaker, The Digital Infrastructure of Sovereignty Depends on Our Choices; Michael Albertus, Recolonisation: The Return of Empire and Grounding in the 21stCentury; Oleksandra Matviïtchouk, The Strength of Our Struggle: Dan Wang; An Engineer State: Figures and Trends of the New Chinese Hegemony: Minxin Pei; Emily Feng, Totalitarian Modernisation: At the Origins of Xi Jinping’s Regime; “Let the Red Flowers”: The Problem of Chinese Identity: Wang Huning; America Against America: Selected Excerpts: Lu Feng; Industrial Maximalism: The Economic Doctrine of the Chinese Century: Zhao Xiaozhuo; The Chinese Plan to Take Taiwan: Jiang Shigong; The Empire and the World Order: Paul Saffo; The New Grotius Moment: Beeban Kidron; AI Generation: Notes for the Lost Children of the Digital Age: Robert-Henri Berger; Winning the War: For a New Army: Afterword by Afra Wang; The Awakening of Lingao: Presentation of the authors. Le Grand Continent, a journal that was created online and is driven by a new generation, has established itself as the leading platform for strategic, political and intellectual debate on a continental scale. This very clear “albeit technical” book should be read by anyone interested in the future of our liberal democracy, particularly in this six-month period that will lead France and Europe to make crucial choices. As JF Kennedy said, it will not be easy, but it is because it is difficult that we must choose this path! Dominique CHESNEAU

The author develops the theory initiated by Karl Polanyi in his seminal book entitled The Great Transformation, which argues in favour of a “re-embedding of the economy in society”. Serge Latouche strives – following Castoriadis and Lefort – to go beyond this thesis by showing that degrowth is less economic than political and social, more “frugal and cultural” than material and financial. He denounces the excessive importance taken on by the neo-liberal economy founded in the 18th century and on the English enclosure movement denounced by Thomas More, then on the research of Hayek, Friedman and the Mont Pèlerin Society. He proposes a project for society based on sharing and living together. He criticises the “neo-libertarian narrative of growth”, by contrasting it with the “counter-narrative” of the “grand narrative of degrowth”, which is based on plans to develop common goods (resources and public services) and the common good (shared values). The aim of the project is to put an end to the failures of the state and the market economy. The author notes that, despite the calls for vigilance from eco-socialists, the growth economy, which is based on “sad passions” such as “the thirst for wealth and power”, continues to prosper, in particular thanks to the “post-truth” maintained by AI. The author considers the most suitable political regime for initiating the degrowth project, and concludes that “direct and decentralised democracy” is preferable to a “plutocratic technocracy”, the former transforming society from below and the latter from above. He advocates “local action, the eco-region and the urban village”. He argues that the growth society destroys the common goods (natural resources) and the common good (the societal project and collective values), and that it is based on a one-dimensional man: homo economicus. He comments on  the debates between the different schools of degrowth thought and criticises the fact that most eco-socialists  call for the advent of degrowth through catastrophic discourses , such as those of the IPCC. The reader of the book will better understand the themes and language codes of the degrowthers, but will also appreciate the impasses of some of their projects. Serge Latouche is Professor Emeritus at the University of Saclay and author of numerous books and articles on the Social and Solidarity Economy. Jean-Jacques Pluchart

On 5 March 1946, Winston Churchill delivered a speech in which he said, “I do not think that Soviet Russia desires war; what it desires are the fruits of its power as well as of its doctrines. Our difficulties and dangers will not disappear if we turn a blind eye, if we wait to see what happens, or if we practise a policy of appeasement.” These reflections from another time are strikingly relevant today. The Kremlin wants to become once again the feared power it was in the past by reasserting its rights to lands it considers ancestral. Faced with the rise of these dangers, it is imperative to have clear ideas about the state of the threat, the adversary’s modes of action, our interpretation biases and our level of preparedness. There is also a much more pernicious danger to be feared: that of the alteration of democratic systems, as artificial intelligence will allow targeting with rare precision and the manipulation of information with unsuspected sophistication. For Ukraine, it is a war of national liberation, a struggle for the survival of the state and a fight for freedom, since the Russian president denies the existence of the Ukrainian nation. The war has forged a new Ukraine, tested, exhausted but united and resolute. The Kremlin is using the war in Ukraine to stage its confrontation with Western countries and accentuate the divisions in the world. What is certain is that the current confrontation is not only about the survival of Ukraine and the security of Europe, but also about the sustainability of liberal democracy, which is now under attack from all sides. Faced with a danger that is certainly imprecise but blatant, dealing with the most pressing issue is a necessity; imagining the worst is a categorical imperative. Without this effort of imagination and a surge of willpower, there is a great risk of being caught off guard. Because Russia is actively preparing for the possibility of the war spreading across Europe. Several indicators show that Russia is preparing for a prolonged war: The defence budget, which represents 38% of Russia’s budget, shows that the Kremlin’s priority is to continue the war. It is rearming at full speed while organising itself to improve its supplies and armaments: it manufactures 300 tanks per year – France, which is the best equipped, has 215 Leclerc tanks. Russia is increasing the size of its army: 600,000 soldiers compared to 150,000 before the war in Ukraine. Lifting the sanctions would give the Russian economy a breath of fresh air. A militarist regime feeds on war; there are many actions that are already affecting Europe and France in particular, there are also attacks on the integrity of public debate aimed at influencing general opinion, and above all there are attacks on national cohesion. Europe must prepare for a long-term confrontation where anything goes. Céline Marangé is a researcher on Russia, Ukraine and Belarus at the Strategic Research Institute of the École Militaire, and an associate member of the Research Centre inSlavic History (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) Reading summary prepared by Michel Gabet

Sociologist Marlène Benquet’s work, the result of ten years of research, aims to define how a “second finance” is constructed—a novel mode of capital accumulation by financial actors fully aware of their “value,” but with political consequences that favor the development of a libertarian-type regime through authoritarian capitalism. One of the main characteristics of this second finance is its detachment from the market driven by traditional financial actors, who collect savings, such as banks, insurance companies, pension funds, and household savings. In short, the market considered as the only way to invest in listed companies. Second-tier finance develops outside the market but without truly severing ties with it, through over-the-counter transactions. This allows it to be less regulated while retaining considerable freedom to invest in unlisted assets. Consequently, it enables the transformation of assets previously considered ineligible (real estate, unlisted companies, infrastructure, derivative financial products, pension funds) into assets. Second-tier finance develops outside of traditional markets. Its purpose is therefore not to promote competition. It encourages privatization in order to seize control of certain sectors, such as healthcare. The accelerated concentration of clinics since the early 2000s is a clear example. Marlène Benquet also points out that numerous examples support this argument, citing a window of opportunity created by the Commission for the Liberation of Growth (2008), which specifically encouraged third-party investors to acquire stakes in pharmacies: “A Health Europe Directive, driven by the European Union, which also encouraged third-party investment, particularly from financial players, in pharmacy capital, has created assets in the healthcare sector that previously escaped financialization. These assets have become highly profitable and are guaranteed by the State, since payment, pricing, usage, and profits are all guaranteed by the national health insurance system.” The workings of this mechanism are perfectly adjusted. Continuing the demonstration leads to an inescapable conclusion: (1) no competition, (2) a quasi-rent-seeking situation, (3) a level of service guaranteed by the State. Zero risk, maximum profit. The book is based on genuine fieldwork conducted using an indisputable research methodology (some sixty interviews with financial players, who were “more accessible than expected,” and access to archival material comprising 2,600 documents). This on-site , in-vivo observation of financial players in their daily lives is transcribed in a rich verbatim style from the very first chapters. The conclusion—which appears to be the author’s true motivation—reveals a kind of unwritten strategy employed by this secondary financial sector, paving the way (or perhaps even providing a mediated platform?) for an authoritarian libertarian ideology widely shared abroad and in France. The actors (agents of normalization), described as conservatives, are explicitly mentioned by the author when establishing a link between these “extreme” political alternatives and their economic influence. Sociologist Marlène Benquet is a research director at the CNRS and a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Institute in Social Sciences (IRISSO). Her work focuses on mass retail and the world of international finance. Alain BRUNET

The Fifth Republic is based on a simple fact: whoever holds the majority holds power. Yet this majority has become elusive. Power has left the Élysée Palace, is not in the National Assembly, and no longer resides in the government. The aim of this book is to understand how a system that has long functioned on the basis of a clear majority becomes unstable when that majority disappears. Benjamin Morel begins by examining the reasons why we have shifted from a stable two-party system to a dysfunctional three-party system. He then analyzes the effects of this shift on the political system: the temptation to expand the powers of the head of state by overinterpreting the Constitution, the proliferation of expedients to govern regardless (maintaining a resigned government, executive orders…), all of which are precedents whose accumulation paves the way for an illiberal drift. The book presents the following themes: tripolarization, an unstable legislature, escaping the trap of instability, a regime in a fragile balance, and governing nonetheless under a Constitution designed to ward off instability while remaining vulnerable to illiberal abuses. The book’s conclusion is tinged with a certain optimism: the one who defines the crisis is also the one who provides solutions, provided we do not allow ourselves to be misled by false prophets. Changing the electoral system is not an end in itself. Parliament must be better equipped to enable it to ensure the co-construction of legislation between Parliament and the government. The functioning of a regime is not a metaphysical property of the norm; it is a property of the society that receives it. The state functions like public services. A government can lose its political legitimacy when it can no longer translate election results into consent: To govern despite this is to govern in spite of it!  What holds a legal order together is everyone’s conviction that it is in their interest to respect it and play by the rules. Some say it would be easy to solve the problem. A new Constitution would cure our ills. A new election would sweep away our worries. What is causing the crisis is the overall mismatch between the election and the expectations surrounding it. These expectations are divided into three camps, yet they all expect one of them to govern with the absolute powers of a majority bloc. All eyes remain fixed on the presidential election, even as the electoral landscape makes the return of a Jupiter unlikely. Faced with this paradox, which every citizen carries within them, the solutions lie not in the texts but in the minds! Dominique Chesneau

The encyclical, which “does not offer an analysis of AI because it is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of it,” focuses on human dignity and moral responsibility in the face of emerging technologies. It follows in the footsteps of Leo XIII, who presented the social doctrine of the Church and emphasized that the pursuit of profit cannot be the be-all and end-all of human society. The Pope explains two reasons why the book is not technical: any statement about AI risks quickly becoming obsolete given the speed at which these systems evolve; and all of us, including those who design them, know little about how they actually work! Furthermore, the book does not make alarmist claims such as that AI would lead to mass layoffs and a widespread dumbing down of the population (“do not be afraid”), but, drawing on the work of numerous working groups cited in the book, it argues that good will come from this revolution, provided that this good is not monopolized by a tiny minority because “a large part of this technology falls under the common good.” In seeking to establish humanistic principles for the development and use of AI, the goal is not to create restrictive regulations that would stifle innovation, but rather to incorporate ethical and moral considerations into the design of models and the selection of training data. And according to Ricoeur and Levinas, the essence of ethics lies in respecting the other by seeing oneself in the gaze of one’s counterpart, beyond laws and rules. A few chapters—the 3rd and 4th deserve special attention among: (1) The evolution of the Church’s social doctrine and its role as a “theology of communion” throughout history, (2) The foundations and principles of social doctrine, including human dignity, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, and social justice, (3) Analysis of the risks associated with artificial intelligence, the concentration of technologies, and the need for a common code of ethics, (4) Preserving the human dimension in the digital transformation, valuing work, education, and freedom in the face of commodification, (5) Building a “civilization of love” in the digital age, promoting peace, dialogue, and multilateralism. We will recall the five principles of the Catholic Church’s social doctrine, which have been presented by past and present economists and elaborated upon in the first two chapters: the principle of the common good (developed by Jean Tirole in his seminal work), the principle of the universal destination of goods (mentioned by 18th-century moralists), the principle of subsidiarity (in management literature, the term “subsidiarity” and the difficulty of its implementation are discussed in France-Lanord and Vannier 2014; Verrier and Bourgeois 2016, 27); the principle of solidarity and the principle of social justice. To illustrate the relevance of the topics discussed, let us cite a few illustrative excerpts from the book: let us avoid the pretension of a single language capable of translating everything into data and performance metrics, even the mystery of the person; entrusting, in practice, to an algorithm the power to select who deserves what, without anyone bearing the weight of the decision, amounts to entrusting it with the task of redefining the limits of human possibilities; data ownership must be regulated and managed as a common good ( !); developers bear an ethical responsibility because every design choice expresses a vision of humanity These concerns and humanistic recommendations are echoed by Anthropic, which cannot predict whether the phenomenon of AI misalignment (when an artificial intelligence pursues goals that conflict with human values or do not truly correspond to what humans have asked of it, Ed.) will ever be fully resolved. Anthropic continues in a text published by its think tank, the Anthropic Institute: “We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow down or temporarily suspend the development of advanced AI, in order to allow societal structures and alignment research to keep pace with technological progress.” This nearly 200-page letter, dedicated to “the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence,” resonates far beyond Catholic circles and “constitutes a political and humanist manifesto of unprecedented scope.” Dominique Chesneau